Teachers and the State 1900‐30

This article explores the relationship of teachers to the State during the first decades of this century. It argues that teachers had a particular ideological, political and economic role within the State. It takes issue with the recent studies of Ozga & Lawn which have invested teachers’ trade union militancy with an anti‐statist politics. This article employs a different approach to explain teachers’ politics, especially those of feminist teachers. Exploring the objective and subjective relationship of teachers to the State, the article concludes that teachers’ strategies were statist.